Did Deana Carter and Kacey Musgraves Make It to Happy Hour First?

Thanks to Deana Carter, I still have days when I think to myself, “Did I shave my legs for this?”
That song of hers, from her 1996 debut album of the same name, was everything I was loving about country music back then. I mean, what woman couldn’t relate to that moment when you think, “It’s perfectly clear, between the TV and beer, I won’t get so much as a kiss”?

So I’m thrilled Carter is back to making music and writing with some of the other insightful poets in country music, including Kimberly Perry and Kacey Musgraves.

“When I sat with her and watched how she played guitar — she had such open tunings and cool ideas — I was like, ’I used to be that way. I used to just not worry about it and just create,'” Carter said. “It was so refreshing to be with her and do that.”

One of the songs that came out of that session is “That’s Just Me,” which Carter says has Dolly Parton roots to it.

“It talks about the roots of who we are and making the best of a situation,” Carter said. “The lyric says, ’It’s not the crown that makes the queen.’ Just cool little lyrics that now, seeing her whole career and how she writes and us together, it was just a real good match. It was serendipity.”

But the best story within this story is the one where Carter talks about how fast some of the songs came for her and Musgraves.

“That first writing appointment, we got the song done in, like, two hours. So we were going, ’OK, we can make happy hour,'” Carter recalled. “There were some other people writing in the building, and we were giving them grief because we had just gone in and written our song and they were struggling. That first one was just a gift. We hit it off. She liked me, I loved her, we sat and wrote, and it was done. I thought, ’This is it.'”